the arctic as a ‘void’

04

‘HYPEROBJECTS’

As the previous chapters introduced, we need to rethink borders and their implications on our geopolitical system. This chapter will use the term ‘Hyperobject’ to look differently at the entanglement of phenomena across various scales, their impacts on the settlements within the Arctic environment, and the rethinking of our geopolitical system.

Timothy Morton calls climate change a ‘Hyperobject’: a thing that surrounds us, envelops, and entangles us, but that is too big to see in its entirety. We perceive them in our local environment through their influence on other things (FE., melting ice). Therefore, the Hyperobject itself is ‘nonlocal,’ which makes is possible for humans to say that we don’t have anything to do with for example the pumping of billions of barrels of oil from Exxon. But still we can perceive the local manifestations of the hyperobject, which allows us to shift our engagement with climate change.LXX

So, if we want to understand the entanglements behind a Hyperobject, we need to link the concepts with its structures. The structures exist out of things, who deliver other things, such as rain, plastic bags, car engines, etc. all of these things influence the local manifestations of the Hyperobject. An example of such a manifestation is the BP Deepwater horizon disaster28 that happened in 2010. The oil spilled during this disaster covered humans as well as nature over a large area. This event was a high news topic for a couple of weeks, now, the oil is still influencing the environmental conditions, but the world already moved forward thinking about the next spectacle.LXXI This nonlocal aspect, namely the fact that the story is not closely related to your everyday life, makes it difficult to relate to this event. Moreover, it also makes it difficult to understand the global impacts of this event that form the total definition of the Hyperobject.

28 THE BP OIL spill of 2010 started suddenly, explosively, and with deadly force. As a crew on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig worked to close up an exploratory oil well deep under the Gulf of Mexico, a pulse of gas shot up, buckling the drill pipe. The emergency valve designed to cap the well in case of an accident, the “blowout protector,” failed, and the gas reached the drill rig, triggering an explosion that killed 11 crewmembers. Over the next three months, the uncapped well leaked 3.19 million barrels of oil into the Gulf’s waters, which can be compared with more than 300 Olympic-sized swimming pools, making it the biggest oil spill in United States history.CX